Sunday, January 1, 2017

10 Years of Lessons Learned in The Wine Business

As we wrap up our first decade as wine business owners, I've been thinking quite a lot about the lessons I've learned over the years. What would I distill and pass along from our first 10? In that spirit, here is a (slightly salty) musing -- the top 10 things I’ve learned from a decade of running our
own wine business. This could also be entitled: "The best advice I could give someone starting their own
brand."

1)Get a good lawyer. Get an even better accountant.
Love your label designer. Adore your customers. Know many others will just be
there to blow smoke up your … or sell you something.

2)You’ll probably get a little fat. Because wine
is not calorie-free, and either is all the amazing food – and amazing friends
who cook – that come along with it. But it's okay; you're in good company.

3)You will wear three to 10 hats each and every
day. Being in the wine business for yourself requires at least some knowledge
of many things, from botany to meteorology, to chemistry, to accounting, to
finance, to customer service, to food service… I could go on. If you enjoy
never quite knowing what you’ll be up to each and every day, this may be the
job for you.

4)Drink less of your own wine and more of others.
Too many winery owners only drink their own product. Because, well, it’s there,
and you can justify it because it’s your product, and because you like it (let’s
hope). But understanding what others are doing is paramount. Tastes change,
styles change, and “cellar palate” – where only your own wine tastes right – is
a real thing.

5)Don’t. Ever. Stop. Running your own business is
pushing the rock up the hill. Especially in the beginning. But just because
there are little plateaus that get easier, and because you keep getting
stronger and more adept at pushing, it doesn’t mean there’s ever a time you
should let go. Because that rock will, eventually, roll back downhill. Owning
your own business is deeply rewarding, but you have to push every day, until
you sell or quit. The thing I’ve heard the most, from all the entrepreneurs in
all the various businesses I’ve talked to over the years: you get out what you
put in. When you stop is when the trouble starts, so be relentless instead.

6)Do not underestimate the amount of time you’ll
spend doing paperwork. The wine business is romantic, yes, glitzy, sometimes,
down-and-dirty, often, but it’s also one of the most highly regulated
industries in the United States. Your county, your state and your federal
government all want their piece and those records that go along with it. And so
will all the other states where your product finds a home. And then there’s
inventory, payroll, bills, label approvals, supply ordering, and on and on.

7)Know that tax law is not on your side as a wine
business. Wineries are generally required to use the accrual method of
accounting. This means that, even though you incur the costs of manufacturing
your product as they happen, you can’t write those costs off until you sell the
product – often a year or more down the road.

8)Schedule your time off. Bake it into the cake,
as my husband says. Because if you follow #5 and never stop pushing, you’ll be
hard-pressed to take it. But also know that you’ll only take half of that
scheduled time off, because you like what you do, and you've got shit to do, you
know?!

9)Make your business profitable. Because vanity or
lifestyle wine businesses don’t work unless you have multiple, multiple zeros
in your (or your family’s) bank account. And even if you have a lot of zeros, you’ll
only want to lose money for so long. My best advice, for what it’s worth: work
a side job, build reasonably, get into DIY in a semi-masochistic way, and build
a business for the long term. Because it’s a hell of a lot cheaper to buy
someone else’s wine than to make your own just for kicks.

10)You will lead a very rewarding life. Crafting a
product that people will enjoy, appreciate, wax on about, share with friends,
and use to console themselves, is pretty awesome. There’s an inherent
satisfaction in being behind a well-made product. This business will also keep
you grounded: close to the earth, close to the weather, close to what you can
see, smell, taste and explain. Close to your senses, and to family, and to all
these amazing parts of life. This is what makes #1-9 worth it. Because THAT
taste of THAT wine from THAT vintage causes amnesia in the best way, much like
the amnesia that happens after you have a child. The hardships of the first
years just slip away, among all the precious moments, like the trials of each
harvest fade, and you jump back in again the next fall. Having children and
making wine seem to be the same sort of happy insanity.

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About Me

About Foursight Wines

We’ve always said that every wine tells a story. The same can be said about every winery.

Foursight Wines is a small, family-owned and –operated winery in the cool, coastal region of Anderson Valley. Founded in 2007 by Bill and Nancy Charles – local winegrowers – together with daughter Kristy Charles and her husband, Joseph Webb, we produce just 800 cases of estate Pinot Noir, Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon, plus Anderson Valley Gewurztraminer, each year.

Our name – Foursight Wines – signifies both the number of generations of our family to live and work on this one piece of land in Anderson Valley, and the aim of our efforts: to look forward and provide for the future generations of our family.

Each and every day you will find one of us working in the vineyard, tasting our wines, or tending to the day-to-day tasks of the vineyard and winery. We believe that good wine is made in the vineyard, and, in the best years, no intervention at all is needed to produce the highest-quality, small-lot wines.

We are a true family business, with many years of combined experience in winemaking, viticulture, wine marketing, wine public relations, and wine sales. Each of us contributes something to the whole, and in return we get to live and work in this beautiful place while preserving a part of our family heritage.